A harvester cleaning fan system having a cross flow fan rotor, an inlet, an outlet and an inlet cover. The rotor rotates about a fan axis and has vanes defining a cylindrical rotation volume. The inlet extends around the rotor from an inlet leading edge to an inlet trailing edge. The outlet extends from the inlet trailing edge to the inlet leading edge. The inlet cover is adjacent the inlet, radially spaced from the rotor, and extends from a cover leading edge to a cover trailing edge. The cover leading and trailing edges are between the inlet leading and trailing edges. A first inlet passage is between the cover leading edge and the inlet leading edge, and a second inlet passage is between the inlet trailing edge and the cover trailing edge. An agricultural vehicle having a cleaning fan is also provided.

A cleaning system for a combine harvester includes a fan, at least one duct having an interior passageway that is positioned to receive an air stream from the fan, and a surface defined within the interior passageway of the at least one duct that is configured to restrict a volume of the flow of air passing through the at least one duct and increase a pressure of the air stream passing through the duct.

A combine harvester includes a header assembly configured for collecting a crop, a threshing assembly coupled to the header assembly and configured for separating grains of the crop from material other than grain, and a cleaning assembly positioned in association with the threshing assembly and configured for separating the grains from chaff. The cleaning assembly includes a fan assembly having a fan housing with a fan output duct and a fan mounted to the fan housing, and one or more cleaning sieves. The fan assembly is configured to blow air across the one or more cleaning sieves via the fan output duct. The fan output duct includes at least one segmented air deflector.

A grain cleaning system for a combine harvester having a transmitter adapted to transmit a base signal at a known frequency and one or more spaced receivers for detecting signals of a different frequency as reflected from airborne grain and other materials within the duct of the grain cleaning system An Electronic Control Unit modulates the base signal and the reflected signals to obtain Doppler signals or frequencies from which an average particle velocity is determined. The particle velocity is used as an input parameter for the generation of control signals for the adjustment of various working units of the combine harvester including, by way of example, the fan and sieves.

A cleaning mechanism of a combine harvester, for cleaning threshed and separated crop material, including a grain pan for receiving threshed and separated crop material and transporting the crop material rearwardly; a chaffer installed proximate the grain pan for receiving material from the grain pan where the chaffer includes a plurality of longitudinal channels with non-planar surfaces giving each channel a curved or trapezoidal cross section and at least two of the chaffer channels have an asymmetric non-planar surface with a greater part of the surface area facing the side portions of the chaffer; and a fan that causes an air flow through the chaffer to lift up discardable parts from the crop material and transport the discardable parts out of the combine harvester.

A fan assembly for a cleaning system of a combine harvester includes a housing having a plurality of interconnected walls, the interconnected walls defining least one inlet opening through which air is delivered into the housing, and at least one outlet opening through which air is exhausted from the housing. A deflector is positioned either at or adjacent the outlet opening, the deflector being configured to affect a flow of air across a width dimension W of the outlet opening. The deflector may be a single, unitary body or the deflector may include a plurality of independently rotatably panels.

An assembly quality detection device and a method for a wind screen cleaning system based on streamline pattern, includes a main body of a test bench and a detection system. The main body of the test bench includes a test bench rack and a cleaning centrifugal fan; the inside of the test bench rack is provided with a cleaning space. The detection system includes a smoke generation and transmission device, a two-degree-of-freedom smoke fixed-point release mechanism, a high-speed image acquisition system and a control system. A fixed base is installed on the upper end of the outlet of the cleaning centrifugal fan, a linear moving guide rail device is installed on the fixed base, the linear moving guide rail device is equipped with a moving slider, the moving slider is installed with a rotating mechanism, the rotating mechanism output end is provided with a smoke releasing duct, the smoke releasing duct is communicated with the smoke generation and transmission device. The detection device and method can test the manufacturing and assembly quality of the cleaning system of the combine harvester by combining the characteristics of wind tunnel streamline pattern with image processing and corresponding mathematical operation.

A sugarcane harvester for harvesting sugarcane including a cutter configured to cut sugarcane into a sugarcane mat and a primary extractor disposed adjacent to the sugarcane mat configured to remove crop residue from the sugarcane mat. An elevator includes a conveyor to move the sugarcane mat to an end of the conveyor and an extractor is operatively connected to the elevator. The extractor includes a fan housing having an arm extending laterally from a sidewall of the fan housing and toward a center of the fan housing. A fan assembly is supported by the arm and is configured to remove crop residue from the sugarcane mat at the end of the conveyor. A cover assembly is fixedly connected to the support arm and subtends a fan of the fan assembly and a portion of the support arm, wherein the cover assembly directs crop debris away from the fan and the support arm.

A cleaning system for an agricultural combine includes a cleaning shoe including a chaffer having an upstream extremity and a downstream extremity, a cleaning fan for establishing a flow of air upwardly through the chaffer, and a transverse chaffer dam mounted proximate to the downstream extremity transversely obstructing a crop layer flow path extending over the chaffer from the upstream extremity to the downstream extremity while permitting air and threshed crop material to flow thereover and thereunder through a transverse opening between the chaffer dam and the downstream extremity.

Combine harvesters are provided for use in harvesting seed corn from corn plants in fields. In connection therewith, a method for producing such seed corn from the corn plants, for use in growing subsequent corn plants, includes measuring a moisture content of corn kernels on ears of the corn plants in the field and removing, by one of the combine harvesters, the ears of corn from the corn plants when the moisture content satisfies a threshold moisture content. The method then includes separating the corn kernels from cobs of the ears of corn onboard the combine harvester and collecting the separated corn kernels for use as seed corn, whereby one or more subsequent corn plants can be grown from the collected corn kernels.